Dowd - Cheney Spits Toads

[realFedUp]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/opinion/09dowd.html

Cheney Spits Toads
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: September 9, 2004

snip-

Without Zell Miller around to out-crazy him, and unplugged after a convention that tried to "humanize'' him with grandchildren, horses and wifely anecdotes about his inability to dance the twist, Mr. Cheney is back as Terrifier in Chief.

These guys figure, hey, these scare tactics worked in building support for the Iraq war, maybe they can work in tearing down support for John Kerry. They linked Saddam with terrorism and cowed the Democrats (including Mr. Kerry, who has never been able to make the case against the Bush administration's trompe l'oeil casus belli) and fooled the country into going along with their trumped-up war. So why not link Mr. Kerry with terrorism and cow the voters into sticking with the White House they've got?

Mr. Cheney warns against falling back "into the pre-9/11 mind-set,'' when, in fact, the Bush team's pre-9/11 mind-set was all about being stuck in the cold war and reviving "Star Wars" - which doesn't work and is useless against terrorist tactics. The Bush crowd played down terrorism because Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger had told their successors that Osama was a priority, and the Bushies scorned all things Clinton. The president shrugged off intelligence briefings with such headlines as "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'' because there was brush to be cleared and unaffordable tax-cutting to be done.

For a time, it seemed that Americans were realizing they'd been flimflammed by the Bushies. But at the convention, the swaggering Bush juggernaut brazenly went back to boasting about its pre-emption doctrine, tracing imaginary connections between 9/11 and Saddam, and calling all our foes terrorists.

continued

[catzies]

1. Ouch. What a turn of phrase she coined.

I don't know whether I love or or hate it.

"Trompe l'oeil casus belli." :crazy:

[realFedUp]

2. Sometimes I need Cliff Notes to Dowdisms....

[thomas_a]

7. fool the eye beligerant cause

[realFedUp]

8. lol...thanks

[Poiuyt]

3. Great article!

[RamboLiberal]

4. Here's my favorite parts - Imagine if * was a Dem

From the column.

The vice president and president did not even mention Osama at the convention because of the inconvenient fact that the fiend is still out there, plotting. Yet they denigrate Mr. Kerry as too weak to battle Osama, and treat him as a greater threat.

Mr. Cheney implies that John Kerry couldn't protect us from an attack like 9/11, blithely ignoring the fact that he and President Bush didn't protect us from the real 9/11. Think of what brass-knuckled Republicans could have made of a 9/11 tape of an uncertain Democratic president giving a shaky statement that looked like a hostage tape and flying randomly from air base to air base, as the veep ordered that planes be shot down.

Mr. Cheney warns against falling back "into the pre-9/11 mind-set,'' when, in fact, the Bush team's pre-9/11 mind-set was all about being stuck in the cold war and reviving "Star Wars" - which doesn't work and is useless against terrorist tactics. The Bush crowd played down terrorism because Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger had told their successors that Osama was a priority, and the Bushies scorned all things Clinton. The president shrugged off intelligence briefings with such headlines as "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'' because there was brush to be cleared and unaffordable tax-cutting to be done.

[dand]

5. Love her or hate her, she says it like it is,

" Why should the same group that managed to paint a flextime guardsman as a heroic commander, and a war hero as a war criminal, bother rebutting or engaging with critics".
We are witnessing the ultimate in arrogance.
Thanks for a great post.

[Randers]

10. I thought that statement

summed up the campaign pretty well.


Of course they can't get into a serious debate. What amazes me is how they make up any story they want and are believed by some 36%+%.

[Merlin]

6. In panic, a Frankensteinian media whore apprehends the monster of her own

creation.

MoDo, a prime practitioner of journalistic equi-speak, suddenly discovers some tattered last strands of decency and outrage among the decayed remains of her enfeebled, abandoned soul.

[Demeter]

11. Too True! Considering the Knife Job She Did on Bill and Hillary

It's amazing that she can bitch about the results. M. Dowd did her part to sink Gore, tried to pile on top of the Big Dog, and now she has the chutzpah to complain?

Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. Is that what they mean by getting the wind up? Or is it just farting?

[Rose Siding]

9. "flextime guardsman"

heeheehee

[giant_robot]

12. I'm not a huge MoDo fan,

but I did enjoy this article.

[whitehouserefugee_SF]

13. Definition of Terrorism

In the article "Terror and Just Response," written by noam chomsky,
(http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=2064) the author cites the official US definition of "terrorism." _The "US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction_, TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37" states that terrorism is:
"the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." By that very definition Cheney's claims are in themselves terrorism. He uses the threat of terrorism to instill fear and coerce the public for political, idealogical and religious gains. In one sentence, cheney managed to meet all the criteria of the officiall US definition of terrorism. Just something to think about.


PS: above link is a very relevant article if you're willing to invest the 3 hours it'll probably take you to finish it.
-Pearson